U.S. patent application number 14/977016 was filed with the patent office on 2017-06-22 for systems and methods for recommending pages.
The applicant listed for this patent is Facebook, Inc.. Invention is credited to Jason Brewer, Bradley Ray Green.
Application Number | 20170178023 14/977016 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 59066391 |
Filed Date | 2017-06-22 |
United States Patent
Application |
20170178023 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Green; Bradley Ray ; et
al. |
June 22, 2017 |
SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR RECOMMENDING PAGES
Abstract
Systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable media can
determine a respective embedding for each entity in a set of
entities that are accessible through the social networking system,
wherein each embedding is learned based at least in part on one or
more sessions of connections formed between users and entities of
the social networking system. One or more candidate entities that
are related to a first entity can be determined based at least in
part on the respective embeddings for the candidate entities and
the first entity. At least a first candidate entity from the one or
more candidate entities can be provided as a recommendation to a
user that formed a connection with the first entity.
Inventors: |
Green; Bradley Ray;
(Snohomish, WA) ; Brewer; Jason; (Kirkland,
WA) |
|
Applicant: |
Name |
City |
State |
Country |
Type |
Facebook, Inc. |
Menlo Park |
CA |
US |
|
|
Family ID: |
59066391 |
Appl. No.: |
14/977016 |
Filed: |
December 21, 2015 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
1/1 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06N 20/00 20190101;
G06F 16/9535 20190101; G06Q 50/01 20130101 |
International
Class: |
G06N 99/00 20060101
G06N099/00; G06Q 50/00 20060101 G06Q050/00; G06F 17/30 20060101
G06F017/30 |
Claims
1. A computer-implemented method comprising: determining, by a
social networking system, a respective embedding for each entity in
a set of entities that are accessible through the social networking
system, wherein each embedding is learned based at least in part on
one or more sessions of connections formed between users and
entities of the social networking system, and wherein an embedding
for an entity is a numerical representation of the entity;
determining, by the social networking system, one or more candidate
entities that are related to a first entity based at least in part
on the respective embeddings for the candidate entities and the
first entity; and providing, by the social networking system, at
least a first candidate entity from the one or more candidate
entities as a recommendation to a user that formed a connection
with the first entity.
2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein determining
the respective embedding for each entity in the set of entities
further comprises: obtaining, by the social networking system, data
describing at least one sequence of connections formed between
users and entities of the social networking system, the data
including a respective timestamp at which each connection was
formed; determining, by the social networking system, a set of
sessions from the sequence, wherein each session includes a
threshold number of entities with which a connection was formed;
training, by the social networking system, at least one model using
a skip-gram negative down sampling technique based at least in part
on the set of sessions; and mapping, by the social networking
system, each entity in the set of entities to a respective
embedding based at least in part on the at least one model.
3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein determining
the set of sessions from the sequence further comprises:
determining, by the social networking system, each session based at
least in part on a predefined time interval.
4. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein determining
the set of sessions from the sequence further comprises:
determining, by the social networking system, a period of
inactivity between a first set of connections and a second set of
connections in the sequence, the period of inactivity having a
threshold length of time; determining, by the social networking
system, that the first set of connections correspond to a first
session; and determining, by the social networking system, that the
second set of connections correspond to a second session.
5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein determining
the one or more candidate entities that are related to the first
entity further comprises: generating, by the social networking
system, one or more clusters of entities, wherein the entities are
clustered based at least in part on their respective embeddings;
and identifying, by the social networking system, the one or more
candidate entities from the clusters, wherein a respective distance
measurement between a candidate entity and the first entity
satisfies a threshold distance.
6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein the distance
is measured based on a cosine similarity between the embedding for
the candidate entity and the embedding for the first entity.
7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein providing at
least the first candidate entity from the one or more candidate
entities as a recommendation to the user further comprises:
determining, by the social networking system, that a predicted
conversion rate for the user and the first candidate entity
satisfies a threshold conversion rate.
8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, the method further
comprising: determining, by the social networking system, a machine
learning model that is trained to predict the conversion rate,
wherein the model is trained based at least in part on entity
connections that were previously formed by the user.
9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the
predicted conversion rate measures a likelihood that the user will
form a connection with the first candidate entity.
10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein an entity
corresponds to at least a page, user profile, group, story, or
status update that is accessible through the social networking
system.
11. A system comprising: at least one processor; and a memory
storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one
processor, cause the system to perform: determining a respective
embedding for each entity in a set of entities that are accessible
through the social networking system, wherein each embedding is
learned based at least in part on one or more sessions of
connections formed between users and entities of the social
networking system, and wherein an embedding for an entity is a
numerical representation of the entity; determining one or more
candidate entities that are related to a first entity based at
least in part on the respective embeddings for the candidate
entities and the first entity; and providing at least a first
candidate entity from the one or more candidate entities as a
recommendation to a user that formed a connection with the first
entity.
12. The system of claim 11, wherein determining the respective
embedding for each entity in the set of entities further causes the
system to perform: obtaining data describing a sequence of
connections formed between users and entities of the social
networking system, the data including a respective timestamp at
which each connection was formed; determining a set of sessions
from the sequence, wherein each session includes a threshold number
of entities with which a connection was formed; training at least
one model using a skip-gram negative down sampling technique based
at least in part on the set of sessions; and mapping each entity in
the set of entities to a respective embedding based at least in
part on the at least one model.
13. The system of claim 12, wherein determining the set of sessions
from the sequence further causes the system to perform: determining
each session based at least in part on a predefined time
interval.
14. The system of claim 12, wherein determining the set of sessions
from the sequence further causes the system to perform: determining
a period of inactivity between a first set of connections and a
second set of connections in the sequence, the period of inactivity
having a threshold length of time; determining that the first set
of connections correspond to a first session; and determining that
the second set of connections correspond to a second session.
15. The system of claim 11, wherein determining the one or more
candidate entities that are related to the first entity further
causes the system to perform: generating one or more clusters of
entities, wherein the entities are clustered based at least in part
on their respective embeddings; and identifying the one or more
candidate entities from the clusters, wherein a respective distance
measurement between a candidate entity and the first entity
satisfies a threshold distance.
16. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium including
instructions that, when executed by at least one processor of a
computing system, cause the computing system to perform a method
comprising: determining a respective embedding for each entity in a
set of entities that are accessible through the social networking
system, wherein each embedding is learned based at least in part on
one or more sessions of connections formed between users and
entities of the social networking system, and wherein an embedding
for an entity is a numerical representation of the entity;
determining one or more candidate entities that are related to a
first entity based at least in part on the respective embeddings
for the candidate entities and the first entity; and providing at
least a first candidate entity from the one or more candidate
entities as a recommendation to a user that formed a connection
with the first entity.
17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim
16, wherein determining the respective embedding for each entity in
the set of entities further causes the computing system to perform:
obtaining data describing a sequence of connections formed between
users and entities of the social networking system, the data
including a respective timestamp at which each connection was
formed; determining a set of sessions from the sequence, wherein
each session includes a threshold number of entities with which a
connection was formed; training at least one model using a
skip-gram negative down sampling technique based at least in part
on the set of sessions; and mapping each entity in the set of
entities to a respective embedding based at least in part on the at
least one model.
18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim
17, wherein determining the set of sessions from the sequence
further causes the computing system to perform: determining each
session based at least in part on a predefined time interval.
19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim
17, wherein determining the set of sessions from the sequence
further causes the computing system to perform: determining a
period of inactivity between a first set of connections and a
second set of connections in the sequence, the period of inactivity
having a threshold length of time; determining that the first set
of connections correspond to a first session; and determining that
the second set of connections correspond to a second session.
20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim
16, wherein determining the one or more candidate entities that are
related to the first entity further causes the computing system to
perform: generating one or more clusters of entities, wherein the
entities are clustered based at least in part on their respective
embeddings; and identifying the one or more candidate entities from
the clusters, wherein a respective distance measurement between a
candidate entity and the first entity satisfies a threshold
distance.
Description
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0001] The present technology relates to the field of content
provision. More particularly, the present technology relates to
techniques for recommending pages.
BACKGROUND
[0002] Today, people often utilize computing devices (or systems)
for a wide variety of purposes. Users can use their computing
devices to, for example, interact with one another, access content,
share content, and create content. In some cases, content items can
include postings from members of a social network. The postings may
include text and media content items, such as images, videos, and
audio. The postings may be published to the social network for
consumption by others.
[0003] Under conventional approaches, a user may navigate to or be
presented with various content items in a social network. The
content items can come from pages associated with members of the
social network. In some instances, the content items may be of high
interest to the user. If the user expresses interest in a
particular content item, the social network may attempt, based on
the content item, to provide to the user additional content items
that would also be of interest to the user. Providing such
additional content items can enhance the user experience and may
help realize the full potential of the social network.
Unfortunately, attempts to provide such additional content items
and to maintain a high level of interest from the user often fail.
The growing size of social networks can also pose problems with
respect to the goal of providing content items of high interest to
the user. As available content grows in amount, in theory, the
likelihood of finding more content items of high interest to the
user should increase. However, in practice, the ability to identify
content items of high interest to the user can be complicated by
the sheer volume of content.
SUMMARY
[0004] Various embodiments of the present disclosure can include
systems, methods, and non-transitory computer readable media
configured to determine a respective embedding for each entity in a
set of entities that are accessible through the social networking
system, wherein each embedding is learned based at least in part on
one or more sessions of connections formed between users and
entities of the social networking system, and wherein an embedding
for an entity is a numerical representation of the entity. One or
more candidate entities that are related to a first entity can be
determined based at least in part on the respective embeddings for
the candidate entities and the first entity. At least a first
candidate entity from the one or more candidate entities can be
provided as a recommendation to a user that formed a connection
with the first entity.
[0005] In an embodiment, the systems, methods, and non-transitory
computer readable media are configured to obtain data describing a
sequence of connections formed between users and entities of the
social networking system, the data including a respective timestamp
at which each connection was formed, determine a set of sessions
from the sequence, wherein each session includes a threshold number
of entities with which a connection was formed, train at least one
model using a skip-gram negative down sampling technique based at
least in part on the set of sessions, and map each entity in the
set of entities to a respective embedding based at least in part on
the at least one model.
[0006] In an embodiment, the systems, methods, and non-transitory
computer readable media are configured to determine each session
based at least in part on a predefined time interval.
[0007] In an embodiment, the systems, methods, and non-transitory
computer readable media are configured to determine a period of
inactivity between a first set of connections and a second set of
connections in the sequence, the period of inactivity having a
threshold length of time, determine that the first set of
connections correspond to a first session, and determine that the
second set of connections correspond to a second session.
[0008] In an embodiment, the systems, methods, and non-transitory
computer readable media are configured to generate one or more
clusters of entities, wherein the entities are clustered based at
least in part on their respective embeddings and identify the one
or more candidate entities from the clusters, wherein a respective
distance measurement between a candidate entity and the first
entity satisfies a threshold distance.
[0009] In an embodiment, the distance is measured based on a cosine
similarity between the embedding for the candidate entity and the
embedding for the first entity.
[0010] In an embodiment, the systems, methods, and non-transitory
computer readable media are configured to determine that a
predicted conversion rate for the user and the first candidate
entity satisfies a threshold conversion rate.
[0011] In an embodiment, the systems, methods, and non-transitory
computer readable media are configured to determine a machine
learning model that is trained to predict the conversion rate,
wherein the model is trained based at least in part on entity
connections that were previously formed by the user.
[0012] In an embodiment, the predicted conversion rate measures a
likelihood that the user will form a connection with the first
candidate entity.
[0013] In an embodiment, an entity corresponds to at least a page,
user profile, group, story, or status update that is accessible
through the social networking system.
[0014] It should be appreciated that many other features,
applications, embodiments, and/or variations of the disclosed
technology will be apparent from the accompanying drawings and from
the following detailed description. Additional and/or alternative
implementations of the structures, systems, non-transitory computer
readable media, and methods described herein can be employed
without departing from the principles of the disclosed
technology.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0015] FIG. 1 illustrates an example system including an example
entity module, according to an embodiment of the present
disclosure.
[0016] FIG. 2 illustrates an example of an embedding module
configured to generate embeddings of sequences of user interactions
with entities, according to an embodiment of the present
disclosure.
[0017] FIG. 3 illustrates an example of an entity recommender
module configured to provide entity recommendations, according to
an embodiment of the present disclosure.
[0018] FIG. 4 illustrates an example process for determining page
recommendations, according to an embodiment of the present
disclosure.
[0019] FIG. 5 illustrates an example process for determining entity
embeddings, according to an embodiment of the present
disclosure.
[0020] FIG. 6 illustrates a network diagram of an example system
including an example social networking system that can be utilized
in various scenarios, according to an embodiment of the present
disclosure.
[0021] FIG. 7 illustrates an example of a computer system or
computing device that can be utilized in various scenarios,
according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.
[0022] The figures depict various embodiments of the disclosed
technology for purposes of illustration only, wherein the figures
use like reference numerals to identify like elements. One skilled
in the art will readily recognize from the following discussion
that alternative embodiments of the structures and methods
illustrated in the figures can be employed without departing from
the principles of the disclosed technology described herein.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
Approaches for Recommending Pages
[0023] Today, people often utilize computing devices (or systems)
for a wide variety of purposes. Users can use their computing
devices to, for example, interact with one another, access content,
share content, and create content. In some cases, content items can
include postings from members of a social network. The postings may
include text and media content items, such as images, videos, and
audio. The postings may be published to the social network for
consumption by others.
[0024] Under conventional approaches, a user may navigate to or be
presented with various content items in a social network. The
content items can come from pages associated with members of the
social network. In some instances, the content items may be of high
interest to the user. If the user expresses interest in a
particular content item, the social network may attempt, based on
the content item, to provide to the user additional content items
that would also be of interest to the user. Providing such
additional content items can enhance the user experience and may
help realize the full potential of the social network.
Unfortunately, attempts to provide such additional content items
and to maintain a high level of interest from the user often fail.
The growing size of social networks can also pose problems with
respect to the goal of providing content items of high interest to
the user. As available content grows in amount, in theory, the
likelihood of finding more content items of high interest to the
user should increase. However, in practice, the ability to identify
content items of high interest to the user can be complicated by
the sheer volume of content. Accordingly, such conventional
approaches may not be effective in addressing these and other
problems arising in computer technology.
[0025] An improved approach rooted in computer technology overcomes
the foregoing and other disadvantages associated with conventional
approaches specifically arising in the realm of computer
technology. In various embodiments, entity recommendations can be
generated for users in a social networking system based on
sequences of user connections with entities. Such entities can
include pages, user profiles, groups, stories, cities, and status
updates, to name some examples. A user can interact with an entity
in various ways and such interactions can result in the user
forming a connection with the entity. For example, an entity may be
a page that is accessible through the social networking system. The
page may correspond to some type of subject matter (e.g., a
business, topic, location, user, etc.). Users of the social
networking system can navigate to the page to learn more about the
subject matter as well as access and/or post content through the
page. Users have the option to be associated with the page, for
example, by "liking" the page (e.g., selecting a "like" option
through the social networking system) or by becoming a "fan" the
page (e.g., selecting a "fanning" option through the social
networking system). In this example, a user can form a connection
with the page by perform actions such as visiting the page, fanning
the page, and/or posting through the page, for example. Other types
of interactions through which entity connections can be formed
include accessing (or visiting) a user profile, posting to a user
profile, friending a user, joining a group, associating with
cities, reading stories (e.g., stories presented in a user's news
feed), and/or liking a status update. Naturally, this list of
interactions is not exhaustive and, depending on the
implementation, there may be many other types of interactions
through which connections between users and entities may be
formed.
[0026] In various embodiments, entity recommendations can be
determined from embeddings that are generated using a skip-gram
negative down sampling technique. In general, a learning algorithm
(e.g., a two-layer neural net) can be used to generate
corresponding embeddings (or vectors) for words in sentences. Such
embeddings are typically used for natural language processing. In
one example, respective embeddings for a sequence of words in a
sentence can be learned. Each word embedding can be represented
using a vector that has a semantic structure. Such embeddings can
be used to determine a word's relation to other words, for example,
using vector operations. In various embodiments, a skip-gram
negative down sampling technique can be used to generate embeddings
that correspond to sequences of user interactions with entities in
the social networking system. Thus, each user can be treated as a
sentence and every entity with which the user has formed a
connection can be treated as a word. The resulting embeddings have
semantic meaning. That is, a distance between an embedding for a
first entity and an embedding for a second entity represents a
probability that a user will connect with both the first entity and
the second entity within the same time frame or sequence (e.g.,
session). In some embodiments, the respective distances between
such embeddings can be used to cluster entities that are closely
related to one another. In general, entities determined to be
closely related tend to have the highest probability of appearing
within the same time frame or sequence. As a result, entities that
are related to one another can easily be identified. Moreover,
entities to be recommended to users can also easily be identified.
In various embodiments, an embedding is a numerical representation
of an entity, for example, using a vector.
[0027] FIG. 1 illustrates an example system 100 including an
example entity module 102, according to an embodiment of the
present disclosure. As shown in the example of FIG. 1, the entity
module 102 can include an embedding module 104 and an entity
recommender module 106. In some instances, the example system 100
can include at least one data store 108. The components (e.g.,
modules, elements, etc.) shown in this figure and all figures
herein are exemplary only, and other implementations may include
additional, fewer, integrated, or different components. Some
components may not be shown so as not to obscure relevant
details.
[0028] In some embodiments, the entity module 102 can be
implemented, in part or in whole, as software, hardware, or any
combination thereof. In general, a module as discussed herein can
be associated with software, hardware, or any combination thereof.
In some implementations, one or more functions, tasks, and/or
operations of modules can be carried out or performed by software
routines, software processes, hardware, and/or any combination
thereof. In some cases, the entity module 102 can be implemented,
in part or in whole, as software running on one or more computing
devices or systems, such as on a user or client computing device.
In one example, the entity module 102, or at least a portion
thereof, can be implemented as or within an application (e.g.,
app), a program, or an applet, etc., running on a user computing
device or a client computing system, such as the user device 610 of
FIG. 6. In another example, the entity module 102 or at least a
portion thereof can be implemented using one or more computing
devices or systems that include one or more servers, such as
network servers or cloud servers. In some instances, the entity
module 102 can, in part or in whole, be implemented within or
configured to operate in conjunction with a social networking
system (or service), such as the social networking system 630 of
FIG. 6.
[0029] The entity module 102 can be configured to communicate
and/or operate with the at least one data store 108, as shown in
the example system 100. The at least one data store 108 can be
configured to store and maintain various types of data including,
for example, the respective entity connections made by users in the
social networking system as well as the time at which such
connections were made. In some implementations, the at least one
data store 108 can store information associated with the social
networking system (e.g., the social networking system 630 of FIG.
6). The information associated with the social networking system
can include data about users, social connections, social
interactions, locations, geo-fenced areas, maps, places, events,
pages, groups, posts, communications, content, feeds, account
settings, privacy settings, a social graph, and various other types
of data. In some implementations, the at least one data store 108
can store information associated with users, such as user
identifiers, user information, profile information, user specified
settings, content produced or posted by users, and various other
types of user data.
[0030] In various embodiments, the embedding module 104 can be
configured to generate embeddings for sequences of user
interactions with entities. More details regarding the embedding
module 104 will be provided below with reference to FIG. 2. The
entity recommender module 106 can be configured to provide entity
recommendations for users. More details regarding the entity
recommender module 106 will be provided below with reference to
FIG. 3.
[0031] FIG. 2 illustrates an example of an embedding module 202
configured to generate embeddings of sequences of user interactions
with entities, according to an embodiment of the present
disclosure. In some embodiments, the embedding module 104 of FIG. 1
can be implemented as the embedding module 202. As shown in FIG. 2,
the embedding module 202 can include a data preparation module 204,
a training data module 206, and a training module 208.
[0032] As mentioned, users can interact with entities and such
interactions can form connections between users and the
corresponding entities. A connection between a user and an entity
can form, for example, when the user perform actions, as described
above. In various embodiments, the data preparation module 204 is
configured to log each connection that is formed between a user and
an entity as well as the time (e.g., timestamp) at which the
connection was formed. The data preparation module 204 can
aggregate this connection data into a respective user connections
model m(P) for each user. The user connections model m(P)
represents a sequence of connections made by the user over a period
of time. One example representation of a user connections model
m(P) is as follows:
m(P)={{i.sub.1,t.sub.1},{i.sub.2,t.sub.2}, . . .
,{i.sub.n,t.sub.n}},
[0033] where P corresponds to a user, i corresponds to an entity,
and where t corresponds to a time at which the user formed a
connection with the entity i. In some embodiments, the entities
included in the user connections model m(P) are all of the same
type (e.g., pages, or user profiles, or status updates). In some
embodiments, the entities included in the user connections model
m(P) are of mixed types (e.g., pages, user profiles, and status
updates).
[0034] The training data module 206 is configured to sessionize the
respective user connections model for each user. In other words,
the training data module 206 is configured to divide a user
connections model into one or more sessions to produce a number of
training examples. A session generally refers to a period of time
over which a user formed connections with entities. In one example,
a session may be defined as the period of time between the time a
user logged on to the social networking system and the time the
user logged off of the social networking system. In general,
sessionization of a user connections model consists of decomposing
a sentence (e.g., sequence of a user's entity connections) into
smaller sentences (e.g., sessions) while maintaining the relative
order of the connections. In some embodiments, the boundaries of
these smaller sentences can be based on time. For example, the
training data module 206 can divide the user connections model into
sessions that each measure some period of time (e.g., hour, day,
week, etc.). In some embodiments, the sessionization can be based
on contiguous runs of user activity that are separated by long
periods of inactivity. In such embodiments, a boundary between a
first session and a second session is defined by a period of
inactivity between the first session and the second session that
exceeds a median time between sessions. Thus, for example, if m(P)
has activity times T.sub.s=t.sub.1, t.sub.2, t.sub.3, . . . ,
t.sub.n, the median time between each of the events T.sub.s is
calculated (e.g., median(T.sub.s)). If the time interval between a
first sequence of events and a second sequence of events is greater
than the median time (e.g., t.sub.j-t.sub.i>median(T.sub.s)),
then the first sequence of events and the second sequence of events
are each divided into sub-sequences (or sub-sessions). As a result,
this produces sessionized training data that consists of
sub-sessions of connection activity. The number of sub-sessions is
denoted by subsession(m(P)) in the example below:
m(P)={m.sub.{P,1},m.sub.{P,2}, . . .
,m.sub.{P,subsession(m(P))}}.
[0035] After determining the sub-sessions, the training data module
206 can collect and prepare the sub-sessions to be used for
training. In some embodiments, the training data module 206
discards any sub-sessions that include only one entity. In some
embodiments, the training data module 206 discards any sub-sessions
that have an anomalous length (e.g., a length that exceeds some
threshold length).
[0036] In various embodiments, the training module 208 is
configured to embed sequence information using a modified skip-gram
technique. In such embodiments, the training module 208 can
associate each entity i with a vector v.sub.i. For example, a
training sentence may consist of a sequence of entities i.sub.1,
i.sub.2, . . . i.sub.n. A window of length w (e.g., 3, 4, or 5) can
be slid across the training sentence so that each of the entities
in the sentence are considered in turn (e.g., i.sub.j, i.sub.{j+1},
. . . , i.sub.{j+w}). The length of the window parameter is tunable
and can vary depending on the implementation. The training module
208 is configured to determine the probability of a pair of
entities within the window biased by the amount of time difference
between the pair of entities. For example, if a window includes a
sequence of page fanning for Page A, Page B, Page C, and Page D,
where the time difference between the fanning of Page A and Page B
is one hour, the time difference between the fanning of Page B and
Page C is 24 hours, and the time difference between the fanning of
Page C and Page D is 48 hours, then, when training, the pair (Page
A, Page B) can be selected more frequently than the pairs (Page B,
Page C) or (Page C, Page D). As a result, the model is trained to
correlate the sequence information for entities that occur within a
window so that entity connections that are formed closer in time
have a higher probability than entity connections that are formed
further away in time.
[0037] In this example, the training module 208 selects an entity k
from among the other entities included in the window of length w.
For example, the entity k may be selected as follows:
k = i { j + w 2 } . ##EQU00001##
[0038] Next, the training module 208 can select another
entity/within the window of length w with a probability that is
inversely proportional to the difference in time between the
entities. One example approach for determining this probability is
as follows:
P ( i l ) = h .DELTA. t ( l - k ) { s .di-elect cons. entities i n
window } h .DELTA. t ( s - k ) , ##EQU00002##
[0039] where h is a tunable hyper parameter that is less than 1
(e.g., 0.99), where .DELTA.t(l-k) represents the difference in time
between the connection to entity I and the connection to entity k,
and where .DELTA.t(s-k) represents the difference in time between
the connection to an entity s that is included in the window and
the connection to entity k.
[0040] Next, the training module 208 can perform the learning step,
for example, using stochastic gradient descent on the entity pair k
and l. In this step, the training module 208 can calculate
Pr(v.sub.k,v.sub.l), where v.sub.k is a vector, or embedding,
corresponding to the entity k, and where v is a vector, or
embedding, corresponding to the entity l. This calculation can be
performed by minimizing the following function L:
L = log ( Pr ( l , k ) ) .about. log ( e { v k * v l } { s
.di-elect cons. entities } e { v k * v l } ) . ##EQU00003##
[0041] The training module 208 performs a learning step that
updates v.sub.k in proportion to the derivative of the function L.
The training module 208 performs this approach for every entity
that is in every training sentence. In some embodiments, multiple
passes over the training data improve the quality of embeddings
that are generated.
[0042] FIG. 3 illustrates an example of an entity recommender
module 302 configured to provide entity recommendations, according
to an embodiment of the present disclosure. In some embodiments,
the entity recommender module 106 of FIG. 1 can be implemented as
the entity recommender module 302. As shown in FIG. 3, the entity
recommender module 302 can include a candidate generation module
304 and a recommendation module 306.
[0043] Once the embeddings have been collected, the candidate
generation module 304 is configured to determine the nearest
neighbors for each entity, for example, using the k-nearest
neighbors algorithm. In some embodiments, the distance between
entities is measured based on the cosine similarity between the
respective embeddings of the two entities. Thus, for any given
entity i, the number of nearest neighbor entities is determined by
a threshold distance .THETA..sub.i between the entity i and the
neighbor entity. In other words, the list of neighbor entities for
entity i includes all entities j for which the respective cosine
similarity between the embedding for entity i (v.sub.i) and the
embedding for entity j (v.sub.j) is greater than the threshold
distance .THETA..sub.i (e.g., cos(v.sub.i,
v.sub.j)>.THETA..sub.i). In some embodiments, the threshold
distance .THETA..sub.i can be determined through on-line
experimentation. For example, the candidate generation module 304
can collect a number of neighbor entities for a first entity. In
some embodiments, some, or all, of these neighbor entities as
suggestions to a user when the user makes a connection to the first
entity. For each neighbor entity, the candidate generation module
304 can determine a respective conversion rate that measures the
rate at which the user forms a connection with the neighbor entity
when the neighbor entity is presented as a suggestion. Neighbor
entities that have a respective conversion rate that is higher than
an average conversion rate of all suggestions can are identified as
quality suggestions and, therefore, can be provided as suggestions
to users.
[0044] The recommendation module 306 is configured to generate
entity recommendations, or suggestions, to users based on the
users' past connections to entities. In various embodiments, the
recommendation module 306 can determine candidate entities for
every previous connection formed by a user, as described above. The
recommendation module 306 can also retrieve features for the
candidate entities. The recommendation module 306 can then apply a
machine learning (ML) process to predict a conversion rate of a
user for a given candidate entity. That is, the recommendation
module 306 can train the ML model to predict a likelihood that the
user will form a connection with the candidate entity. The
recommendation module 306 can rank and provide entity
recommendations to a user based on the respective conversion rate
that is predicted for each entity.
[0045] FIG. 4 illustrates an example process 400 for determining
page recommendations, according to an embodiment of the present
disclosure. It should be appreciated that there can be additional,
fewer, or alternative steps performed in similar or alternative
orders, or in parallel, within the scope of the various embodiments
discussed herein unless otherwise stated. At block 402, a
respective embedding is determined for each entity in a set of
entities that are accessible through the social networking system,
wherein each embedding is learned based at least in part on one or
more sessions of connections formed between users and entities of
the social networking system. At block 404, one or more candidate
entities that are related to a first entity can be determined based
at least in part on the respective embeddings for the candidate
entities and the first entity. At block 406, at least a first
candidate entity from the one or more candidate entities can be
provided as a recommendation to a user that formed a connection
with the first entity.
[0046] FIG. 5 illustrates an example process 500 for determining
entity embeddings, according to an embodiment of the present
disclosure. It should be appreciated that there can be additional,
fewer, or alternative steps performed in similar or alternative
orders, or in parallel, within the scope of the various embodiments
discussed herein unless otherwise stated. At block 502, data
describing a sequence of connections formed between users and
entities of the social networking system is obtained, the data
including a respective timestamp at which each connection was
formed. At block 504, a set of sessions from the sequence are
determined, wherein each session includes a threshold number of
entities with which a connection was formed. At block 506, at least
one model is trained using a skip-gram negative down sampling
technique based at least in part on the set of sessions. At block
508, each entity in the set of entities is mapped to a respective
embedding based at least in part on the at least one model.
[0047] It is contemplated that there can be many other uses,
applications, and/or variations associated with the various
embodiments of the present disclosure. For example, in some cases,
user can choose whether or not to opt-in to utilize the disclosed
technology. The disclosed technology can also ensure that various
privacy settings and preferences are maintained and can prevent
private information from being divulged. In another example,
various embodiments of the present disclosure can learn, improve,
and/or be refined over time.
Social Networking System--Example Implementation
[0048] FIG. 6 illustrates a network diagram of an example system
600 that can be utilized in various scenarios, in accordance with
an embodiment of the present disclosure. The system 600 includes
one or more user devices 610, one or more external systems 620, a
social networking system (or service) 630, and a network 650. In an
embodiment, the social networking service, provider, and/or system
discussed in connection with the embodiments described above may be
implemented as the social networking system 630. For purposes of
illustration, the embodiment of the system 600, shown by FIG. 6,
includes a single external system 620 and a single user device 610.
However, in other embodiments, the system 600 may include more user
devices 610 and/or more external systems 620. In certain
embodiments, the social networking system 630 is operated by a
social network provider, whereas the external systems 620 are
separate from the social networking system 630 in that they may be
operated by different entities. In various embodiments, however,
the social networking system 630 and the external systems 620
operate in conjunction to provide social networking services to
users (or members) of the social networking system 630. In this
sense, the social networking system 630 provides a platform or
backbone, which other systems, such as external systems 620, may
use to provide social networking services and functionalities to
users across the Internet.
[0049] The user device 610 comprises one or more computing devices
(or systems) that can receive input from a user and transmit and
receive data via the network 650. In one embodiment, the user
device 610 is a conventional computer system executing, for
example, a Microsoft Windows compatible operating system (OS),
Apple OS X, and/or a Linux distribution. In another embodiment, the
user device 610 can be a computing device or a device having
computer functionality, such as a smart-phone, a tablet, a personal
digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, a laptop computer, a
wearable device (e.g., a pair of glasses, a watch, a bracelet,
etc.), a camera, an appliance, etc. The user device 610 is
configured to communicate via the network 650. The user device 610
can execute an application, for example, a browser application that
allows a user of the user device 610 to interact with the social
networking system 630. In another embodiment, the user device 610
interacts with the social networking system 630 through an
application programming interface (API) provided by the native
operating system of the user device 610, such as iOS and ANDROID.
The user device 610 is configured to communicate with the external
system 620 and the social networking system 630 via the network
650, which may comprise any combination of local area and/or wide
area networks, using wired and/or wireless communication
systems.
[0050] In one embodiment, the network 650 uses standard
communications technologies and protocols. Thus, the network 650
can include links using technologies such as Ethernet, 802.11,
worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX), 3G, 4G,
CDMA, GSM, LTE, digital subscriber line (DSL), etc. Similarly, the
networking protocols used on the network 650 can include
multiprotocol label switching (MPLS), transmission control
protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP), User Datagram Protocol (UDP),
hypertext transport protocol (HTTP), simple mail transfer protocol
(SMTP), file transfer protocol (FTP), and the like. The data
exchanged over the network 650 can be represented using
technologies and/or formats including hypertext markup language
(HTML) and extensible markup language (XML). In addition, all or
some links can be encrypted using conventional encryption
technologies such as secure sockets layer (SSL), transport layer
security (TLS), and Internet Protocol security (IPsec).
[0051] In one embodiment, the user device 610 may display content
from the external system 620 and/or from the social networking
system 630 by processing a markup language document 614 received
from the external system 620 and from the social networking system
630 using a browser application 612. The markup language document
614 identifies content and one or more instructions describing
formatting or presentation of the content. By executing the
instructions included in the markup language document 614, the
browser application 612 displays the identified content using the
format or presentation described by the markup language document
614. For example, the markup language document 614 includes
instructions for generating and displaying a web page having
multiple frames that include text and/or image data retrieved from
the external system 620 and the social networking system 630. In
various embodiments, the markup language document 614 comprises a
data file including extensible markup language (XML) data,
extensible hypertext markup language (XHTML) data, or other markup
language data. Additionally, the markup language document 614 may
include JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) data, JSON with padding
(JSONP), and JavaScript data to facilitate data-interchange between
the external system 620 and the user device 610. The browser
application 612 on the user device 610 may use a JavaScript
compiler to decode the markup language document 614.
[0052] The markup language document 614 may also include, or link
to, applications or application frameworks such as FLASH.TM. or
Unity.TM. applications, the Silverlight.TM. application framework,
etc.
[0053] In one embodiment, the user device 610 also includes one or
more cookies 616 including data indicating whether a user of the
user device 610 is logged into the social networking system 630,
which may enable modification of the data communicated from the
social networking system 630 to the user device 610.
[0054] The external system 620 includes one or more web servers
that include one or more web pages 622a, 622b, which are
communicated to the user device 610 using the network 650. The
external system 620 is separate from the social networking system
630. For example, the external system 620 is associated with a
first domain, while the social networking system 630 is associated
with a separate social networking domain. Web pages 622a, 622b,
included in the external system 620, comprise markup language
documents 614 identifying content and including instructions
specifying formatting or presentation of the identified content. As
discussed previously, it should be appreciated that there can be
many variations or other possibilities.
[0055] The social networking system 630 includes one or more
computing devices for a social network, including a plurality of
users, and providing users of the social network with the ability
to communicate and interact with other users of the social network.
In some instances, the social network can be represented by a
graph, i.e., a data structure including edges and nodes. Other data
structures can also be used to represent the social network,
including but not limited to databases, objects, classes, meta
elements, files, or any other data structure. The social networking
system 630 may be administered, managed, or controlled by an
operator. The operator of the social networking system 630 may be a
human being, an automated application, or a series of applications
for managing content, regulating policies, and collecting usage
metrics within the social networking system 630. Any type of
operator may be used.
[0056] Users may join the social networking system 630 and then add
connections to any number of other users of the social networking
system 630 to whom they desire to be connected. As used herein, the
term "friend" refers to any other user of the social networking
system 630 to whom a user has formed a connection, association, or
relationship via the social networking system 630. For example, in
an embodiment, if users in the social networking system 630 are
represented as nodes in the social graph, the term "friend" can
refer to an edge formed between and directly connecting two user
nodes.
[0057] Connections may be added explicitly by a user or may be
automatically created by the social networking system 630 based on
common characteristics of the users (e.g., users who are alumni of
the same educational institution). For example, a first user
specifically selects a particular other user to be a friend.
Connections in the social networking system 630 are usually in both
directions, but need not be, so the terms "user" and "friend"
depend on the frame of reference. Connections between users of the
social networking system 630 are usually bilateral ("two-way"), or
"mutual," but connections may also be unilateral, or "one-way." For
example, if Bob and Joe are both users of the social networking
system 630 and connected to each other, Bob and Joe are each
other's connections. If, on the other hand, Bob wishes to connect
to Joe to view data communicated to the social networking system
630 by Joe, but Joe does not wish to form a mutual connection, a
unilateral connection may be established. The connection between
users may be a direct connection; however, some embodiments of the
social networking system 630 allow the connection to be indirect
via one or more levels of connections or degrees of separation.
[0058] In addition to establishing and maintaining connections
between users and allowing interactions between users, the social
networking system 630 provides users with the ability to take
actions on various types of items supported by the social
networking system 630. These items may include groups or networks
(i.e., social networks of people, entities, and concepts) to which
users of the social networking system 630 may belong, events or
calendar entries in which a user might be interested,
computer-based applications that a user may use via the social
networking system 630, transactions that allow users to buy or sell
items via services provided by or through the social networking
system 630, and interactions with advertisements that a user may
perform on or off the social networking system 630. These are just
a few examples of the items upon which a user may act on the social
networking system 630, and many others are possible. A user may
interact with anything that is capable of being represented in the
social networking system 630 or in the external system 620,
separate from the social networking system 630, or coupled to the
social networking system 630 via the network 650.
[0059] The social networking system 630 is also capable of linking
a variety of entities. For example, the social networking system
630 enables users to interact with each other as well as external
systems 620 or other entities through an API, a web service, or
other communication channels. The social networking system 630
generates and maintains the "social graph" comprising a plurality
of nodes interconnected by a plurality of edges. Each node in the
social graph may represent an entity that can act on another node
and/or that can be acted on by another node. The social graph may
include various types of nodes. Examples of types of nodes include
users, non-person entities, content items, web pages, groups,
activities, messages, concepts, and any other things that can be
represented by an object in the social networking system 630. An
edge between two nodes in the social graph may represent a
particular kind of connection, or association, between the two
nodes, which may result from node relationships or from an action
that was performed by one of the nodes on the other node. In some
cases, the edges between nodes can be weighted. The weight of an
edge can represent an attribute associated with the edge, such as a
strength of the connection or association between nodes. Different
types of edges can be provided with different weights. For example,
an edge created when one user "likes" another user may be given one
weight, while an edge created when a user befriends another user
may be given a different weight.
[0060] As an example, when a first user identifies a second user as
a friend, an edge in the social graph is generated connecting a
node representing the first user and a second node representing the
second user. As various nodes relate or interact with each other,
the social networking system 630 modifies edges connecting the
various nodes to reflect the relationships and interactions.
[0061] The social networking system 630 also includes
user-generated content, which enhances a user's interactions with
the social networking system 630. User-generated content may
include anything a user can add, upload, send, or "post" to the
social networking system 630. For example, a user communicates
posts to the social networking system 630 from a user device 610.
Posts may include data such as status updates or other textual
data, location information, images such as photos, videos, links,
music or other similar data and/or media. Content may also be added
to the social networking system 630 by a third party. Content
"items" are represented as objects in the social networking system
630. In this way, users of the social networking system 630 are
encouraged to communicate with each other by posting text and
content items of various types of media through various
communication channels. Such communication increases the
interaction of users with each other and increases the frequency
with which users interact with the social networking system
630.
[0062] The social networking system 630 includes a web server 632,
an API request server 634, a user profile store 636, a connection
store 638, an action logger 640, an activity log 642, and an
authorization server 644. In an embodiment of the invention, the
social networking system 630 may include additional, fewer, or
different components for various applications. Other components,
such as network interfaces, security mechanisms, load balancers,
failover servers, management and network operations consoles, and
the like are not shown so as to not obscure the details of the
system.
[0063] The user profile store 636 maintains information about user
accounts, including biographic, demographic, and other types of
descriptive information, such as work experience, educational
history, hobbies or preferences, location, and the like that has
been declared by users or inferred by the social networking system
630. This information is stored in the user profile store 636 such
that each user is uniquely identified. The social networking system
630 also stores data describing one or more connections between
different users in the connection store 638. The connection
information may indicate users who have similar or common work
experience, group memberships, hobbies, or educational history.
Additionally, the social networking system 630 includes
user-defined connections between different users, allowing users to
specify their relationships with other users. For example,
user-defined connections allow users to generate relationships with
other users that parallel the users' real-life relationships, such
as friends, co-workers, partners, and so forth. Users may select
from predefined types of connections, or define their own
connection types as needed. Connections with other nodes in the
social networking system 630, such as non-person entities, buckets,
cluster centers, images, interests, pages, external systems,
concepts, and the like are also stored in the connection store
638.
[0064] The social networking system 630 maintains data about
objects with which a user may interact. To maintain this data, the
user profile store 636 and the connection store 638 store instances
of the corresponding type of objects maintained by the social
networking system 630. Each object type has information fields that
are suitable for storing information appropriate to the type of
object. For example, the user profile store 636 contains data
structures with fields suitable for describing a user's account and
information related to a user's account. When a new object of a
particular type is created, the social networking system 630
initializes a new data structure of the corresponding type, assigns
a unique object identifier to it, and begins to add data to the
object as needed. This might occur, for example, when a user
becomes a user of the social networking system 630, the social
networking system 630 generates a new instance of a user profile in
the user profile store 636, assigns a unique identifier to the user
account, and begins to populate the fields of the user account with
information provided by the user.
[0065] The connection store 638 includes data structures suitable
for describing a user's connections to other users, connections to
external systems 620 or connections to other entities. The
connection store 638 may also associate a connection type with a
user's connections, which may be used in conjunction with the
user's privacy setting to regulate access to information about the
user. In an embodiment of the invention, the user profile store 636
and the connection store 638 may be implemented as a federated
database.
[0066] Data stored in the connection store 638, the user profile
store 636, and the activity log 642 enables the social networking
system 630 to generate the social graph that uses nodes to identify
various objects and edges connecting nodes to identify
relationships between different objects. For example, if a first
user establishes a connection with a second user in the social
networking system 630, user accounts of the first user and the
second user from the user profile store 636 may act as nodes in the
social graph. The connection between the first user and the second
user stored by the connection store 638 is an edge between the
nodes associated with the first user and the second user.
Continuing this example, the second user may then send the first
user a message within the social networking system 630. The action
of sending the message, which may be stored, is another edge
between the two nodes in the social graph representing the first
user and the second user. Additionally, the message itself may be
identified and included in the social graph as another node
connected to the nodes representing the first user and the second
user.
[0067] In another example, a first user may tag a second user in an
image that is maintained by the social networking system 630 (or,
alternatively, in an image maintained by another system outside of
the social networking system 630). The image may itself be
represented as a node in the social networking system 630. This
tagging action may create edges between the first user and the
second user as well as create an edge between each of the users and
the image, which is also a node in the social graph. In yet another
example, if a user confirms attending an event, the user and the
event are nodes obtained from the user profile store 636, where the
attendance of the event is an edge between the nodes that may be
retrieved from the activity log 642. By generating and maintaining
the social graph, the social networking system 630 includes data
describing many different types of objects and the interactions and
connections among those objects, providing a rich source of
socially relevant information.
[0068] The web server 632 links the social networking system 630 to
one or more user devices 610 and/or one or more external systems
620 via the network 650. The web server 632 serves web pages, as
well as other web-related content, such as Java, JavaScript, Flash,
XML, and so forth. The web server 632 may include a mail server or
other messaging functionality for receiving and routing messages
between the social networking system 630 and one or more user
devices 610. The messages can be instant messages, queued messages
(e.g., email), text and SMS messages, or any other suitable
messaging format.
[0069] The API request server 634 allows one or more external
systems 620 and user devices 610 to call access information from
the social networking system 630 by calling one or more API
functions. The API request server 634 may also allow external
systems 620 to send information to the social networking system 630
by calling APIs. The external system 620, in one embodiment, sends
an API request to the social networking system 630 via the network
650, and the API request server 634 receives the API request. The
API request server 634 processes the request by calling an API
associated with the API request to generate an appropriate
response, which the API request server 634 communicates to the
external system 620 via the network 650. For example, responsive to
an API request, the API request server 634 collects data associated
with a user, such as the user's connections that have logged into
the external system 620, and communicates the collected data to the
external system 620. In another embodiment, the user device 610
communicates with the social networking system 630 via APIs in the
same manner as external systems 620.
[0070] The action logger 640 is capable of receiving communications
from the web server 632 about user actions on and/or off the social
networking system 630. The action logger 640 populates the activity
log 642 with information about user actions, enabling the social
networking system 630 to discover various actions taken by its
users within the social networking system 630 and outside of the
social networking system 630. Any action that a particular user
takes with respect to another node on the social networking system
630 may be associated with each user's account, through information
maintained in the activity log 642 or in a similar database or
other data repository. Examples of actions taken by a user within
the social networking system 630 that are identified and stored may
include, for example, adding a connection to another user, sending
a message to another user, reading a message from another user,
viewing content associated with another user, attending an event
posted by another user, posting an image, attempting to post an
image, or other actions interacting with another user or another
object. When a user takes an action within the social networking
system 630, the action is recorded in the activity log 642. In one
embodiment, the social networking system 630 maintains the activity
log 642 as a database of entries. When an action is taken within
the social networking system 630, an entry for the action is added
to the activity log 642. The activity log 642 may be referred to as
an action log.
[0071] Additionally, user actions may be associated with concepts
and actions that occur within an entity outside of the social
networking system 630, such as an external system 620 that is
separate from the social networking system 630. For example, the
action logger 640 may receive data describing a user's interaction
with an external system 620 from the web server 632. In this
example, the external system 620 reports a user's interaction
according to structured actions and objects in the social
graph.
[0072] Other examples of actions where a user interacts with an
external system 620 include a user expressing an interest in an
external system 620 or another entity, a user posting a comment to
the social networking system 630 that discusses an external system
620 or a web page 622a within the external system 620, a user
posting to the social networking system 630 a Uniform Resource
Locator (URL) or other identifier associated with an external
system 620, a user attending an event associated with an external
system 620, or any other action by a user that is related to an
external system 620. Thus, the activity log 642 may include actions
describing interactions between a user of the social networking
system 630 and an external system 620 that is separate from the
social networking system 630.
[0073] The authorization server 644 enforces one or more privacy
settings of the users of the social networking system 630. A
privacy setting of a user determines how particular information
associated with a user can be shared. The privacy setting comprises
the specification of particular information associated with a user
and the specification of the entity or entities with whom the
information can be shared. Examples of entities with which
information can be shared may include other users, applications,
external systems 620, or any entity that can potentially access the
information. The information that can be shared by a user comprises
user account information, such as profile photos, phone numbers
associated with the user, user's connections, actions taken by the
user such as adding a connection, changing user profile
information, and the like.
[0074] The privacy setting specification may be provided at
different levels of granularity. For example, the privacy setting
may identify specific information to be shared with other users;
the privacy setting identifies a work phone number or a specific
set of related information, such as, personal information including
profile photo, home phone number, and status. Alternatively, the
privacy setting may apply to all the information associated with
the user. The specification of the set of entities that can access
particular information can also be specified at various levels of
granularity. Various sets of entities with which information can be
shared may include, for example, all friends of the user, all
friends of friends, all applications, or all external systems 620.
One embodiment allows the specification of the set of entities to
comprise an enumeration of entities. For example, the user may
provide a list of external systems 620 that are allowed to access
certain information. Another embodiment allows the specification to
comprise a set of entities along with exceptions that are not
allowed to access the information. For example, a user may allow
all external systems 620 to access the user's work information, but
specify a list of external systems 620 that are not allowed to
access the work information. Certain embodiments call the list of
exceptions that are not allowed to access certain information a
"block list". External systems 620 belonging to a block list
specified by a user are blocked from accessing the information
specified in the privacy setting. Various combinations of
granularity of specification of information, and granularity of
specification of entities, with which information is shared are
possible. For example, all personal information may be shared with
friends whereas all work information may be shared with friends of
friends.
[0075] The authorization server 644 contains logic to determine if
certain information associated with a user can be accessed by a
user's friends, external systems 620, and/or other applications and
entities. The external system 620 may need authorization from the
authorization server 644 to access the user's more private and
sensitive information, such as the user's work phone number. Based
on the user's privacy settings, the authorization server 644
determines if another user, the external system 620, an
application, or another entity is allowed to access information
associated with the user, including information about actions taken
by the user.
[0076] In some embodiments, the social networking system 630 can
include an entity module 646. The entity module 646 can, for
example, be implemented as the entity module 102 of FIG. 1. As
discussed previously, it should be appreciated that there can be
many variations or other possibilities.
Hardware Implementation
[0077] The foregoing processes and features can be implemented by a
wide variety of machine and computer system architectures and in a
wide variety of network and computing environments. FIG. 7
illustrates an example of a computer system 700 that may be used to
implement one or more of the embodiments described herein in
accordance with an embodiment of the invention. The computer system
700 includes sets of instructions for causing the computer system
700 to perform the processes and features discussed herein. The
computer system 700 may be connected (e.g., networked) to other
machines. In a networked deployment, the computer system 700 may
operate in the capacity of a server machine or a client machine in
a client-server network environment, or as a peer machine in a
peer-to-peer (or distributed) network environment. In an embodiment
of the invention, the computer system 700 may be the social
networking system 630, the user device 610, and the external system
720, or a component thereof. In an embodiment of the invention, the
computer system 700 may be one server among many that constitutes
all or part of the social networking system 630.
[0078] The computer system 700 includes a processor 702, a cache
704, and one or more executable modules and drivers, stored on a
computer-readable medium, directed to the processes and features
described herein. Additionally, the computer system 700 includes a
high performance input/output (I/O) bus 706 and a standard I/O bus
708. A host bridge 710 couples processor 702 to high performance
I/O bus 706, whereas I/O bus bridge 712 couples the two buses 706
and 708 to each other. A system memory 714 and one or more network
interfaces 716 couple to high performance I/O bus 706. The computer
system 700 may further include video memory and a display device
coupled to the video memory (not shown). Mass storage 718 and I/O
ports 720 couple to the standard I/O bus 708. The computer system
700 may optionally include a keyboard and pointing device, a
display device, or other input/output devices (not shown) coupled
to the standard I/O bus 708. Collectively, these elements are
intended to represent a broad category of computer hardware
systems, including but not limited to computer systems based on the
x86-compatible processors manufactured by Intel Corporation of
Santa Clara, Calif., and the x86-compatible processors manufactured
by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Inc., of Sunnyvale, Calif., as
well as any other suitable processor.
[0079] An operating system manages and controls the operation of
the computer system 700, including the input and output of data to
and from software applications (not shown). The operating system
provides an interface between the software applications being
executed on the system and the hardware components of the system.
Any suitable operating system may be used, such as the LINUX
Operating System, the Apple Macintosh Operating System, available
from Apple Computer Inc. of Cupertino, Calif., UNIX operating
systems, Microsoft.RTM. Windows.RTM. operating systems, BSD
operating systems, and the like. Other implementations are
possible.
[0080] The elements of the computer system 700 are described in
greater detail below. In particular, the network interface 716
provides communication between the computer system 700 and any of a
wide range of networks, such as an Ethernet (e.g., IEEE 802.3)
network, a backplane, etc. The mass storage 718 provides permanent
storage for the data and programming instructions to perform the
above-described processes and features implemented by the
respective computing systems identified above, whereas the system
memory 714 (e.g., DRAM) provides temporary storage for the data and
programming instructions when executed by the processor 702. The
I/O ports 720 may be one or more serial and/or parallel
communication ports that provide communication between additional
peripheral devices, which may be coupled to the computer system
700.
[0081] The computer system 700 may include a variety of system
architectures, and various components of the computer system 700
may be rearranged. For example, the cache 704 may be on-chip with
processor 702. Alternatively, the cache 704 and the processor 702
may be packed together as a "processor module", with processor 702
being referred to as the "processor core". Furthermore, certain
embodiments of the invention may neither require nor include all of
the above components. For example, peripheral devices coupled to
the standard I/O bus 708 may couple to the high performance I/O bus
706. In addition, in some embodiments, only a single bus may exist,
with the components of the computer system 700 being coupled to the
single bus. Moreover, the computer system 700 may include
additional components, such as additional processors, storage
devices, or memories.
[0082] In general, the processes and features described herein may
be implemented as part of an operating system or a specific
application, component, program, object, module, or series of
instructions referred to as "programs". For example, one or more
programs may be used to execute specific processes described
herein. The programs typically comprise one or more instructions in
various memory and storage devices in the computer system 700 that,
when read and executed by one or more processors, cause the
computer system 700 to perform operations to execute the processes
and features described herein. The processes and features described
herein may be implemented in software, firmware, hardware (e.g., an
application specific integrated circuit), or any combination
thereof.
[0083] In one implementation, the processes and features described
herein are implemented as a series of executable modules run by the
computer system 700, individually or collectively in a distributed
computing environment. The foregoing modules may be realized by
hardware, executable modules stored on a computer-readable medium
(or machine-readable medium), or a combination of both. For
example, the modules may comprise a plurality or series of
instructions to be executed by a processor in a hardware system,
such as the processor 702. Initially, the series of instructions
may be stored on a storage device, such as the mass storage 718.
However, the series of instructions can be stored on any suitable
computer readable storage medium. Furthermore, the series of
instructions need not be stored locally, and could be received from
a remote storage device, such as a server on a network, via the
network interface 716. The instructions are copied from the storage
device, such as the mass storage 718, into the system memory 714
and then accessed and executed by the processor 702. In various
implementations, a module or modules can be executed by a processor
or multiple processors in one or multiple locations, such as
multiple servers in a parallel processing environment.
[0084] Examples of computer-readable media include, but are not
limited to, recordable type media such as volatile and non-volatile
memory devices; solid state memories; floppy and other removable
disks; hard disk drives; magnetic media; optical disks (e.g.,
Compact Disk Read-Only Memory (CD ROMS), Digital Versatile Disks
(DVDs)); other similar non-transitory (or transitory), tangible (or
non-tangible) storage medium; or any type of medium suitable for
storing, encoding, or carrying a series of instructions for
execution by the computer system 700 to perform any one or more of
the processes and features described herein.
[0085] For purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are
set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the
description. It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the
art that embodiments of the disclosure can be practiced without
these specific details. In some instances, modules, structures,
processes, features, and devices are shown in block diagram form in
order to avoid obscuring the description. In other instances,
functional block diagrams and flow diagrams are shown to represent
data and logic flows. The components of block diagrams and flow
diagrams (e.g., modules, blocks, structures, devices, features,
etc.) may be variously combined, separated, removed, reordered, and
replaced in a manner other than as expressly described and depicted
herein.
[0086] Reference in this specification to "one embodiment", "an
embodiment", "other embodiments", "one series of embodiments",
"some embodiments", "various embodiments", or the like means that a
particular feature, design, structure, or characteristic described
in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one
embodiment of the disclosure. The appearances of, for example, the
phrase "in one embodiment" or "in an embodiment" in various places
in the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same
embodiment, nor are separate or alternative embodiments mutually
exclusive of other embodiments. Moreover, whether or not there is
express reference to an "embodiment" or the like, various features
are described, which may be variously combined and included in some
embodiments, but also variously omitted in other embodiments.
Similarly, various features are described that may be preferences
or requirements for some embodiments, but not other
embodiments.
[0087] The language used herein has been principally selected for
readability and instructional purposes, and it may not have been
selected to delineate or circumscribe the inventive subject matter.
It is therefore intended that the scope of the invention be limited
not by this detailed description, but rather by any claims that
issue on an application based hereon. Accordingly, the disclosure
of the embodiments of the invention is intended to be illustrative,
but not limiting, of the scope of the invention, which is set forth
in the following claims.
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